The Alfred Herring in Palmers Green will close on Sunday, while The Goat in Ponders End shut its doors at the end of April

The Goat (left) and The Alfred Herring (right)

A pub in Palmers Green has announced it will close this weekend – while another in Ponders End has already called last orders.

The Alfred Herring, a Wetherspoon pub in Green Lanes, will close for the final time this Sunday, while The Goat in Ponders End High Street, which was controversially granted planning permission to convert into a restaurant last year, closed down at the end of April.

JD Wetherspoon announced in September 2022 that The Alfred Herring was on a list of pubs it was seeking to sell the leasehold to and has now confirmed that it is “surrendering back to the landlord”. Estate agent Savills state that the leasehold of the property is under offer but it remains unknown who the buyer is and whether they intend to reopen it as a pub.

The company has confirmed there will be no redundancies because all current staff are being relocated to other Wetherspoon pubs nearby. On the reason for the closure, a spokesperson added: “Wetherspoon does on occasion either sell pubs or surrenders the pub back to the landlord. It is a commercial decision.”

Palmers Green does at least have other pubs still trading, including The Fox which came under new ownership earlier this year after facing closure threats because of noise complaints.

The closure of The Goat, however, leaves Ponders End without a single pub. The closure had been on the cards for a while as owner Ponders End Properties won permission to convert it into a restaurant last year, despite opposition from Edmonton MP Kate Osamor and the Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), among others.

However, the Dispatch understands that a new owner will be acquiring the pub shortly and that another use for it is now being considered.

Angela Clapham was the long-time publican at The Goat going back to the days when it was run by Greene King. She told the Dispatch: “These buildings each have their own personalities and stories – The Goat goes back to 1928 and I think even further because there were pubs on the site before then as well.

“People were shocked when it finally closed; they knew it had been sold but it never quite felt real. There were grown men crying, some of them had been coming here for 50 years, it’s heart-wrenching.

“The community has scattered now, they are trying to find another way to connect, but we have all been pushed out, the pubs have closed one by one and now there are none left.”

Phil Ridley, from the Enfield and Barnet branch of Camra, said: “Until Enfield Council starts to use the powers it has to protect local pubs, like other boroughs have done, we will continue to lose pubs until there are none left in the borough. There are none left in Ponders End at all.”

Regarding the closure of The Alfred Herring, Phil added: “I am devastated about the closure of The Alfred Herring and hope that Enfield Council can protect it from change of use using London Plan Policy HC7 and the emerging Enfield Local Plan pub protection policy which by now should be given substantial weight […] it should demonstrate that the pub has no foreseeable future before planning consent is granted for change of use.”

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